The Jazz Ambassadors

The untold story of America's coolest weapon in the Cold War

The Cold War and Civil Rights collide in this remarkable story of music, diplomacy and race. Beginning in 1955, when America asked its greatest jazz artists to travel the world as cultural ambassadors, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and their mixed-race band members, faced a painful dilemma: how could they represent a country that still practiced Jim Crow segregation?

Cast

Leslie Odom Jr.

Narrator

Quincy Jones

Self

Dizzy Gillespie

Self (archive footage)

Louis Armstrong

Self (archive footage)

Darius Brubeck

Self

Bill Crow

Self

Duke Ellington

Self (archive footage)

Charlie Persip

Self